ok, there wont be kids to shoot. will there be other situations that can be considered edgy in any way? sexuality, nudity, religion, disabilities... anything that is a bold step out of the american violence only psychosis, anything that would have been impossible with conventional publishers? this is a game for adults isnt it?

If you force edgy content into a video game it looses the point it was trying to make. Edgy content can't be forced, it has to follow a natural flow with the writing. Usually the writer doesn't realise the content is edgy until they see a reaction to it.

the post-apocalyptic setting is perfectly suited for edgy content, more than anything else. the lack of institutional morals and the right of the fist will, without a doubt, lead to perversion in multiple ways. as a game that adresses adult gamers of which many are 30+ and as one that has no publisher behind it, i think wildest edgy content would be highly appropriate.

I hope whatever "edgy" content there is is logical and reasonable. Putting random town full of rape just to get "mature" rating is bad. Putting a town with twisted morals and slavery and what not and exploring the results and player interaction is good.

Mandemon wrote:I hope whatever "edgy" content there is is logical and reasonable. Putting random town full of rape just to get "mature" rating is bad. Putting a town with twisted morals and slavery and what not and exploring the results and player interaction is good.

tl;dr Edgy stuff for sake of being "edgy" is bad.

Very much agree with this. Putting 'edgy' (really sounds cliche to me) stuff in, just to make a statement is pointless. It needs to fit the story that inXile want to tell.

Granted, I was still a kid when I first played Wasteland, but I still consider a lot of the content to be geared towards a mature audience, even today. You had things like the option to kill children, opening fire on a police station, blowing up a hobo dog vendor, dealing with a blood cult that drain the blood of it's victims, and sleeping with a three legged prostitute and getting Wasteland herpes.

So, yeah as long as it fits the story I think we will see it in WL2.

The biggest failure in the recent past is this assumption that the audience is not smart.Too much effort is being spent making it dummy proof..all the clues are being held right in front of their nose.The exploration and journey is the reward

There's nothing safer or more boring than the comedian or the writer or the artist or the whatever who tries to be "dangerous" or "edgy." If your work is "dangerous," it'll come out dangerous without any trouble. Forcing edginess makes it feel - you guessed it - forced.

If you want an example from the gaming world, look at the Postal series. If you're a teenager, it's fun for five minutes and funny for one. If you're an adult, it is neither, at any point. It's just boring and aimless, not to mention toothless in its satire. There's no thematic consistency or gravity to anything in the world; everything's there to be laughed at, but there's no context or logic to the humor, and the games are very clearly structured around the jokes, which only adds to the sense of weightlessness. It's just, "Ha ha, I am shooting midgets, and it is humorous because they are midgets!"

GTA is comparatively restrained if you go by sheer amount of "dirty" content, but its shocks feel far more shocking when they occur, because its shocks are ones that spring organically from the Rockstar sensibility. No character, no matter how outsized and cartoonish, is there simply as a joke or a curiosity, and not every moment in the game is meant to make you laugh. Brucie Kibbutz in GTAIV is not funny because Rockstar said "Let's make fun of people who use performance-enhancing drugs!" He's funny because he's an outlandish, absurd person who is nevertheless entirely believable.

Even Saints Row, as bizarre and absurd and dedicated to utter silliness and insanity as it is, still never violates its own absurd internal logic. It represents a concerted effort to go as far over the top as possible, yes, but it works, because all that insanity is built atop a solidly crafted foundation. There's none of Postal's pathetically desperate "Throw things at the wall and pray something gets on CNN" approach to comedy. There's an underlying structure and coherence to it. Very little feels out of place.

All of which is to say that true "edginess" in a video game does not come from the sheer amount of taboo-shattering content contained within it. It comes from the people working on the game talking frankly and intelligently about taboo subjects other games might shy away from. It comes from treating the player like an adult. It comes from challenging the player and making her uncomfortable. It comes from not letting the player rely on pat answers and/or black-and-white morality. It comes from telling the damn truth.

If that describes Wasteland 2, it'll be plenty edgy.

I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.

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